


Tiding seasons

by InTooManyFandomsRay



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthur Pendragon Returns (Merlin), Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt Arthur Morgan, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Mutual Pining, One Shot, Pain, Pining Merlin (Merlin), Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s05e13 The Diamond of the Day, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Self-Hatred, Short One Shot, aesthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28982472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InTooManyFandomsRay/pseuds/InTooManyFandomsRay
Summary: Winter feels like the death of a loved one, the snow freckling his face like cruel tears of a fake God.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TW: Mentions of death, violence, depression, and angst.
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Kudos: 18





	Tiding seasons

Winter feels like the death of a loved one, the snow freckling his face like cruel tears of a fake God. Like a harsh slap on the face, after confessing to loving someone. It feels like the first day of work, nerves tangling up in the pit of his stomach, and a rock placed on his throat, so he could neither speak nor move. Winter feels like the cold and bright crown on the King's head. Harsh, and frightful, and yet, it feels like mercy and forgiveness. Winter compels his heart to shiver under wrathful rage when he knows all it wants to do is beat harder and join its other half. When it's time for Winter to arrive, he slows his heart, saves his breaths, for he doesn't know when he might need it, because the unyielding season almost always steals his heartbeats and swallows his stubborn breaths.

Summer smells like the pyre. The countless screams of his beloved kin while smoke rises in triumph. Summer is a cruel reminder of all he has lost, and all he is yet to gain because, despite the thousand summers that have passed, not a single one of them have brought him the joy he was promised. Summer smells like copper, the tinge of his blood boiling under his skin, and harsh metal clanging away in the blacksmith's forge. Summer doesn't care if he rolls beads of sweat off his back just to help an old woman cross the road, carrying the weight of her belongings and the world on his shoulders; it simply takes. It takes his will and saps away his energy. Summer is an ugly beast, a vampire, drinking his soul to feel itself, however broken it may be.

Monsoon brings water to his eyes, just how lightning brings lashes to his back. Each whip of thunder is a harsh blow, peeling away his skin and laying him bare to the judgment of the world which condemns him. Monsoon feels like limp wrists hanging from the ceiling and damp hair sticking to the curve in his forehead. It's the Fomorroh, sucking away everything and leaving behind only empty memories and numbing aches of the heart. Monsoon is no friend to his shivers or trembling, when he hugs his pale body at night, drowning out whispers of his killings. Monsoon leaves him with the burn on his chest burning a little more than before.

Autumn brings melancholy to his already in-depth sadness. It feels like the shattering of his soul, and the silence threatening to swallow him whole. Autumn is the static on the television and the frequency on the radio. It brings hope to his broken dreams, only to take it away, like the lack of an expected crunch of an orange leaf. Autumn is the pale, flat stone in his hand as he skips it over the water. It threatens to go a long way, only to widen the disappointment in his heart when it drops in the shallow waters after one beat. Autumn is the dust in the library, laughing at his aching pain while he pushes it away, adamant in his search for hope. He lies in the meadow in the bright glow of the setting sun, waiting for his King to rise, and Autumn leaves him only with loss.

And so the cycle repeats, with each season pushing him further into himself, and further away from the world, and from Albion. And in the end, when the dust clears and the stones crumble away, Merlin is all that is left standing of the great Empire of Albion; alone, stubborn, hopeless. He _is_ Albion. And thus, Arthur rises once again for the time has come, when Albion's need is finally at the greatest, and Spring takes birth once again.


End file.
